MacMacMac If someone needs used action parts, wouldn't it be easier (and cheaper) to find a piano restoration shop and buy the items there?
MacMacMac You might get stuff cheap (or free) because restoration often entail complete replacement of the old action.
The shop will have little or no use for an old action.
Old action, yes. Old keys no. A piano restoration shop will never give you a set of keys. Keys are extremely precious and hard to replace. I spoke with many (many!!) rebuilders about this: they always restore existing keys and extremely rarely build new ones. When they do is because the old ones are in such a terrible state that nobody will want them. Why it is so? Because there must be a perfect match of the key shapes and position to the position of the strings and of the enclosure. Very, very hard to do from scratch. I even asked if they could make one for me without the requirement to have to match anything (since it was for an hybrid), and pretty much anybody said they would not do it or asked totally unreasonable prices.
Now, that said, one could get an (otherwise) trashed piano, purchase it (often times they can be gotten for free), pay the transport and the disposal fee and cannibalize the keys. The advantage of this option is that the frame and the keytops would be included (even if the latter might be in bad shape) and that one could cannibalize other parts, such as the action and parts of the cabinet.
Queue99 Via ship 11100jpy/1set/2-3month.
Thank you very much! The price is not horrible, and the time is okay for my project, but I'm having cold feet about the need of installing that many keytops and build an appropriate frame. Let me sleep on it a bit more.
